The Sonic franchise been known to produce bad entries, so some treat each new release with a lot of skepticism. The series does come from a great background on the Genesis though, and Sonic & Knuckles is the final game of that era. The stages in this game were originally intended to be part of Sonic The Hedgehog 3, but when it became clear that that game wouldn't be able to meet its deadline in that form, they were split off into a standalone game. Well, mostly standalone. While the game can be played on its own, Sonic & Knuckles is famous for its lock-on feature, which let gamers plug other Sonic game cartridges into the Sonic & Knuckles cartridge to unlock special features.

Despite the lack of physical cartridges, this functionality is retained in the Virtual Console version. Pressing the - button brings up a menu that lets you connect Sonic & Knuckles with the previous three Genesis Sonic games, provided you have them on your Wii's internal memory or SD card. Connecting to Sonic 1 gets you a large collection of puzzles in the style of the bonus stages in Sonic 3, and connecting to Sonic 2 lets you play as Knuckles in that game, but the real reason to use the feature is Sonic 3. Doing that allows you to play Sonic 3 the way it was originally intended to be played, with the stages of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles mixed together, in a new order, and playable as Sonic, Tails and Knuckles.

The platforming is as great as Sonic ever was, but original stages in Sonic & Knuckles, while good, are not at the same level as those in Sonic 2 or 3. This game is not a good way to introduce yourself to the Sonic series. It would be better to start with Sonic 2 and 3. If you enjoy those two, Sonic & Knuckles is a great way to enhance them with new characters and stages.